18977 Mon Mar 04 14:22:52 -0800 2002 37 1 San Francisco Bay Area 0 61937 Last Friday I spent $17 in cab fare to pay $1.75 for a meatball sandwich from New Vietnam Sandwiches on Larkin. It was worth every penny. Mon Mar 04 14:22:52 -0800 2002 0 augiespal 1 61946 Your pluck is unquestionable, but to confirm that you're a chowhound rather than a foodie: did you tell people in the restaurant what you'd just done, acting all exuberantly triumphant, or did you just order your sandwich, strictly business, like the most natural thing in the world? The epitome of Chowhoundness is to walk thru 450 miles of pestilent jungle for a single, say, muffin, then wait patiently in line, order it poker-faced and consume it with no ado whatsoever. Walk out. That's it. Foodies jump up and down and make a big deal. Best hound I know is Barry Strugatz, and he looks completely morbid throughout the process (in fact, the better the food, the more somber he looks eating it). Inside, he's jubilant. ciao Mon Mar 04 15:09:24 -0800 2002 61937 0 Jim Leff 2 61951 The total of my words exchanged in the restaurant amounted to "meatball, please," "Everything, no mayonnaise," and "thank you." The sum of the cab fare didn't even occur to me till several hours after the sandwich was ingested. I wondered briefly if I had been a bit excessive, if I couldn't have found something just as good to eat a little closer to the office, but no. Now my only worry is that I'll convince myself that it's okay to spend $18.75 on lunch several times a week and won't have any money left for $4 loaves of Brick Maiden sourdough and $5 hunks of Taleggio that I’ve taken to eating for breakfast. Mon Mar 04 15:32:33 -0800 2002 61946 0 augiespal 3 61954 Yup. Bingo. Mon Mar 04 15:43:47 -0800 2002 61951 0 Jim Leff 4 61962 Well, except you're depriving the food vendor of the pleasure of knowing that his/her wares are so outstanding that people are going to extraordinary lengths to obtain them. They might be pretty tickled, which is really the least we can do in exchange for the great pleasure they are giving us. Of course this doesn't apply to people who already have swelled heads about their food (i.e., the Carnegie Deli). But for someone toiling for hours to get a new business off the ground (i.e., the lady at New Vietnam Sandwich), it might brighten her day. Mon Mar 04 16:25:33 -0800 2002 61954 0 Ruth Lafler 5 61974 I admit to gushing to anyone who would listen about my recent tri-city transbay bicycle birthday food tour, both while in progress and the days after. The proprietor of Lorca, bless her, got the whole story the night we were there, and then a recap two days later and a link to the post i wrote. If it inspires someone else to try a new place (or to revisit one that they just found out about), i'm all for unabashed effusion. (Actually, I'm categorically in favor of unabashed effusion.) Mon Mar 04 17:03:16 -0800 2002 61962 0 patrick 6 62011 Jim Leff said the Chowhound's goal was to seem like he or she belonged in the situation, to act normal for it. If you get really good food, especially if you get it really cheap, being effusive is perfectly normal. There are plenty of situations where people would wonder what was wrong with you if you were too quiet. Mon Mar 04 19:14:49 -0800 2002 61974 0 Nathan Landau 7 62013 Ya know, some of us are moaners, and some of us.... Mon Mar 04 19:21:32 -0800 2002 62011 0 galleygirl 8 62035 it's true, i always wake up my roommates when i eat (in bed). Mon Mar 04 22:06:03 -0800 2002 62013 0 patrick 9 62038 LOL Mon Mar 04 22:27:10 -0800 2002 62035 0 galleygirl 10 62107 I went to Bloo one sunday morning when it was pretty empty. Someone--I think one of the owners--came over to talk to me. She asked me if I lived in the neighborhood. No--I live in Berkeley. She was surprised/pleased--she asked something like "You came all the way over from the East Bay to eat here?" Well, sort of, it was definitely part of the agenda. I don't think Berkeley to the Haight is all that far, though it takes you through a certain amount of traffic and parking hassles, and it's a lot farther than many people would go. My point here is not self-congratulation (none deserved) but that the owner was pleased to learn that I'd traveled farther than she expected (I also told her I heard about the place on Chowhound) I'm sure she's not the only one. Of course in this instance she asked me. Tue Mar 05 21:04:55 -0800 2002 62038 0 Nathan Landau 7 62046 Let me try one more time. I am enthusiastic and demonstrative. I am anything BUT blase. I never ever love anything without giving whoever's responsible copious good vibes. I once wrote about my frustration at the end of a great meal...wanting to grab the chef's head in my hands and wanting to scream right into his face "YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY IMAGINE HOW MUCH THAT MEAL MEANT TO ME!" I've never gone that far, but it's a constant urge. I love food. I love people who make good food. I love people who love people who make good food. Hence, this site. Earlier in this thread, I was talking about one very narrow realm of circumstance: the times we make wild, extraordinary efforts for (what would seem to a non-hound) a mundane chow experience. Going 130 blocks out of your way for a slice of pizza. Driving 75 miles to have breakfast at a certain diner. Paying a huge tip to get a taxi driver to step on it so a capricious and wildly impractical craving for pambazos could be met within a narrow time frame. Etc, etc. We've all been there, everyone reading along could chime in with a story like that. In these sorts of circumstances I've found that the typically chowhoundish approach isn't to bound into the restaurant, giddily tell everyone how far out of your way you just went, and eat your pambazo, your breakfast, your pizza with heightened drama, proving to one and all (and yourself) that it was, like, SO WORTH IT. That's the way it'd go in the movie version. Not the chowhound version. Most hounds I know would eat the food the way they'd ever eat that food. Happily. Contentedly. Perchance demonstratively. But we wouldn't behave ANY differently than if we'd happened to have been walking by the place and entered on a whim. THAT'S my point. You've hiked three miles through a raging blizzard, and it's "Oh, hi. Bacon cheeseburger, please. Medium rare." These things are no big deal. We hounds are USED to going further and working harder; that's what chowhounding is all about! It's our defining trait! Some would consider me insane to drive to Westport, CT for doughnuts, but I do what I gotta do to preserve and maintain this bubble around myself wherein I can delude myself into thinking the world's composed of devoted people who create out of pride and love, and where I needn't ever eat, read, listen to (etc) anything soulless. Maintenance of this bubble requires a lot of intrepid willingness to go out of my way. Sometimes it means going VERY out of my way. But that's not remarkable to me; to me, it's just NORMAL. I do it all the time, and most of you do, too. This thread is about a hound who spent an outlandish amount to make her way to a favored vietnamese sandwich shop (for a one dollar sandwich). She stepped up to the counter, and ordered. And she ate. And she was happy. And that moment of happiness was enough. It didn't need to be operatic. It wasn't "special" because of her exertions. It was special cuz it's special...which is why she went through all that to begin with. I once flew to Spain for a slice of potato omelet. The trip was paid, for 'cuz I'd lined up a week of jazz gigs. But my true reason was to eat that tortilla de patatas. I didn't eat the tortilla the way one eats something when one has flown to Spain to eat it. I ate it the way I always eat that tortilla. Right on the money. 'Cuz that's enough. And it felt great. Not a soul in the restaurant knew the background story. I was just in the scene, doing my happy thing. No climax, no anti-climax (at least, not to me, though a movie director shooting the episode would have thrown up his hands in despair). I wasn't expecting supernality, galaxies didn't collide and it wasn't the sweetest meal I'd ever eaten. I was just visiting my favorite tortilla place, a modest enough endeavor which is, to me, worth infinite exertion. For chowhounds, it's not about the journey; it's about arriving. ciao Mon Mar 04 23:46:55 -0800 2002 62011 0 Jim Leff 8 62048 But how could she just get ONE....... Mon Mar 04 23:59:40 -0800 2002 62046 0 galleygirl 9 62062 The need or desire for that sandwich is as natural as breathing if you are a chowhound. Thats the point the effort to get the sandwich is nothing to the real chowhound its the same as turning the light off or in this case on. Jim was just I believe gauging the normalcy of the act for this poster . And why one ? That was all the poster craved. To get more would throw off the balance of true chowhounding and turn it into more of an event. Tue Mar 05 07:53:31 -0800 2002 62048 0 bonetired 10 62073 "And why one ? That was all the poster craved. To get more would throw off the balance of true chowhounding and turn it into more of an event." Bravo! Tue Mar 05 11:22:38 -0800 2002 62062 0 Jim Leff 11 62082 I am a more prosaic hound, I guess...I like looking forward to the second bahn at breakfast.... Tue Mar 05 13:40:49 -0800 2002 62073 0 galleygirl 8 62070 FWIW, I think the difference I would *like* there to be is that for true food lovers/chowhounds there is a lack of self-congratulation present. The praise is for the folks making the food, after all even if your the first person to write about a place on the board, if the place was in business, *someone* has been eating there for a while. secondly, I think a "chowhound" will judge a place on its own merits - For example I think Harold's in chicago is a great fried chicken shack, and am not disturbed about receiving my food through a plexiglass lazy susan. A "foodie" seems to hold all places up to an ideal dining experience, which usually occurred in a michelin starred spot in Europe, which is in its own way a way of interposing themselves too much in the appreciation of the food. Just my 2 cents Tue Mar 05 10:56:25 -0800 2002 62046 0 zim 5 62015 I think the distinguisher could be that you tell the vendor -- wow, I just took a 15 minute (or whatever) cab ride over here because I was craving your sandwiches so much -- rather than I just spent $8.50 on a cab to get here so I could have your $1.75 sandwich. Mon Mar 04 19:23:29 -0800 2002 61962 0 foodnut 3 61959 Actually, if you just buy another for the next day's breakfast, you can rationalize it.. Mon Mar 04 16:06:03 -0800 2002 61951 0 galleygirl 2 61953 Gosh, Jim, I like to think of myself as a Chowhound rather than a foodie, but lord knows I jump up and down a lot. If I came a distance to visit a place I tell them flat out. I get all excited, want to talk with everyone from the owner to the busperson. I peer behind counters to see the business end of things. I chat with others in line. This requires more thought. Can one act like a foodie and still be a chowhound? I smell an essay... Peter wells@emusic.com Link: http://www.burkeandwells.com Mon Mar 04 15:40:41 -0800 2002 61946 0 Burke and Wells 3 61956 No need to take any of this particularly seriously, of course. There's no "litmus test", just tell-tale symptoms. Getting happily excited about chow is perfectly normal for a chowhound. I was referring to the juxaposition of heroic exertion to get to a place and commonplace, blase behavior once there. Such behavior (in such narrowly specific circumstance) is uniquely chowhoundish. I don't mean just an OUTWARDLY blase attitude...I mean really truly falling contentedly into standard operating procedure once you get there, even if you've just flown cross country for an ice cream cone. As if it were the most normal thing in the world. Because you really really want the genuine experience wherever you go, and that means blocking out and otherwise disregarding any extreme exertions which may have brought you there. Mon Mar 04 15:55:57 -0800 2002 61953 0 Jim Leff 4 61960 Yup, such behavior is definitely part of the fabric that makes up a chowhound. On my last business trip to New York, I got off the plane and caught a cab straight to Carnegie Deli because I was craving a decent Pastrami Sandwich. Then, and only then, would I consider going to the hotel to get ready for my meeting... In September I had an overnight stop-over in Paris. Got on the train from the airport, walked right past the Notre Damme into the Latin Quarter for a gyro. I only accompany some friends on their annual pigrimage to the King Busquit Blues Festival in Helena, Arkansas, because of one great barbecue vendor who's there every year. Some people may call this behavior anti-social, but then again I prefer the company of food to that of some people... Mon Mar 04 16:14:34 -0800 2002 61956 0 Zach Georgopoulos 5 61993 Woah woah woah, Zach... surely you aren't saying you don't like the music at the blues festival...Please tell me know...and what about the Ole Miss co-eds (or do they still go)? You don't have to answer those, but you do need to post about that bbq. Preferably on the South message board. Mon Mar 04 18:25:04 -0800 2002 61960 0 Tater 6 62042 He, he.. I most certainly do enjoy the music, but the barbecue is my main reason for making the trek. While my friends are staking out a good place to sit, I always volunteer to go pick up some 'cue and bring it over to them. There's one particular vendor I'm thinking of, but I don't ever recall a name. He's not on the main strip with the "authorized" vendors, but off on a side street with a big ol' smoker on wheels just churning out the best ribs and pork I've ever had. I'll post about it in detail when I go in October -- I missed the Biscuit this last year because I actually had to tend to some business, so it's now been almost a year and a half since I've been. Sitting in the pouring rain on that trip would have been unbearable without a shredded pork sandwich! That said, I might save my pennies and go to "Memphis in May" this year for a true barbecue fest. Anyone from SF thinking of making such a trip? Mon Mar 04 23:19:17 -0800 2002 61993 0 Zach Georgopoulos 4 61978 I'm not sure there's really any disagreement here, but just in case there is . . . I think I side with Ruth Lafler and with Burke & Wells. Pray tell, Jim, exactly why would a "true" chowhound "fall[] contentedly into standard operating procedure once [she] got there, even if [she's] just flown cross country for an ice cream cone, [a]s if it were the most normal thing in the world"? I would think that it was both very 'houndish, and very practical, to be excited about the prospect of long-awaited, or yearned-for, chow, and to express one's enthusiasm to (at the very least) the good folks who are serving it up. You contend, Jim, that nonchalance is preferred "[b]ecause you really really want the genuine experience wherever you go, and that means blocking out and otherwise disregarding any extreme exertions which may have brought you there." Whoa. I thought that one of the principal mantras of this site is that "genuineness," for its own sake, is a false god, or, at the very least, that it takes a back seat to deliciousness. If one's enthusiasm makes a memorable and scrumptious repast more likely, isn't that the way to go? (Pandering example: In my first trip to NYC in four years, I dragged two whole families, squirming kids and all, to DiFara's, whereupon I informed Dominick that I had been anxious for this meal for an awfully long time, had come a long way, and was honored to finally have the opportunity to taste his wares. He appeared to be genuinely appreciative of my enthusiasm and of the distance we had traveled to get there, and the pizza was, of course, divine, although I've no way of knowing whether it was better or worse than it would have been had I kept my excitement to myself.) In fact, now that I think about it, I've found myself increasingly annoyed by the tendency of many to perfect a studied (faux) indifference to the great things in life (food, music, art), as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world to be privileged to experience the extraordinary. As if there were something gauche about acknowledging that something is astonishing or exceptional. Jim, I suspect you don't disagree with most of this -- do you? Please clarify. Mon Mar 04 17:11:09 -0800 2002 61956 0 Marty L. 5 61997 You've taken pretty much everything I've said in the wrong spirit (surely my own fault for writing quickly). I am the most enthusiastic person in the world (when it comes to stuff I love). Hence this site. I'm not, by any means, anti-passionate. Kind of stunned to have been taken that way...it's sort of like suggesting Mike Tyson isn't aggressive enough. I'm discussing a specific sort of behavior in a certain sort of situation. And I said very explicitly that there's no litmus test for what defines a "true" chowhound. This is all coming off leagues more serious than I'd intended. ciao Mon Mar 04 18:35:10 -0800 2002 61978 0 Jim Leff 6 62001 That's what I thought! (I kinda did a double take upon reading your post on the virtues of being "blase" (your word) about great food.) Thanks for clarifying; and don't fret -- your "spirit" comes through loud and clear. It's infectious, which is why we all have such a hard time restraining ourselves on these boards when we discover a new source of delight! Mon Mar 04 18:52:05 -0800 2002 61997 0 Marty L. 6 62028 No need to bring up ears as an item of dining experience now... Mon Mar 04 21:10:15 -0800 2002 61997 0 Chino Wayne 7 62029 I trust that Chino Waynes little one-liner makes it into one of the chowhound publications, or at least into some long forgotten hot thread on best chow jokes Rob Mon Mar 04 21:14:04 -0800 2002 62028 0 Vital Information 4 61990 I can kind of get this if I compare it this way: This is sort of like giving to your neighborhood homeless guy, and then announcing what you've just done to impress people. Mon Mar 04 18:17:35 -0800 2002 61956 0 Fatemeh 5 61996 I see the point, but it depends on how it's done. If the point of your telling about it is to show how clever and discerning *you* are, then yeah, it's uncool. On the other hand if the point is to let food vendors know how much you appreciate their food, then that seems like it just brings more happiness to everyone. Mon Mar 04 18:35:08 -0800 2002 61990 0 Ruth Lafler 6 62017 Totally agreed. Personally, I can't contain the exclamations of joy that sometimes slip past these lips. Mon Mar 04 19:28:45 -0800 2002 61996 0 Fatemeh 6 62036 "If the point of your telling about it is to show how clever and discerning *you* are, then yeah, it's uncool." I'm pretty sure that was Jim's point--that for the chowhound, it's about the end, not the means to the end. Mon Mar 04 22:13:43 -0800 2002 61996 0 Caitlin McGrath 5 62498 YEAH! Or, or, like dining with your neighborhood homeless guy, and then posting exuberantly to this site about how well the Mad Dog complimented the Ball Park Franks! Mon Mar 11 21:05:49 -0800 2002 61990 0 Shep aka 2 Cheap Hungry guys 4 62027 Yeah, it was worth schlepping across country on another rotten business trip, renting a car in Boston and driving for a few hours, hunting down a lobster shack in Maine for those five lobsters my buddy and I consumed at the picnic table outside the establishment, beers in brown bags in hand, the wind howling and freezing our asses off. Mon Mar 04 21:07:15 -0800 2002 61956 0 Chino Wayne 2 62023 Nonchalance in grubbing the delicious may be quintessentially houndly, but a little gracious enthusiasm will go a long way to making the proprietor's day. On the other hand, there is a telling difference between foodies & hounds AFTER the sublime dining experience. Foodies seem to need to selfishly keep their "finds" from their network. Hounds understand that the "best kept secret in Poughkeepsie" will expire with only the title to savor. Foodies don't seem to get it -- a terrific little joint that you might have to wait a bit to get into is better than a boarded up one that you'll never get into again. Mon Mar 04 20:37:58 -0800 2002 61946 0 Mr Grub 1 62016 sounds pretty standard every spring i load up the car with gas and haul ass down toward half moon bay where there is a little roadside stand that sells fresh raw peas by the shopping bag full. I will make this trip everyweekend during the spring until the peas are gone. this seems perfectly normal to me. do not fret, smile, know that you are an appreciatve person that cares more about what they put inside their body then what they wear on it. I can not fathom spending more than 20 dollars for a pair of pants, but i will happily pay 20 dollars for a peice of excellent Toro or a plate of Foie Gras. Think of your self as blessed. Mon Mar 04 19:26:25 -0800 2002 61937 0 Jupiter 1 62061 so what's the deal with the sandwich? what is it? and why did you only get one? don't they keep? i know a lot of food is best fresh but in extreme circumstances i concede that fact and get more anyway. the worst is when i come home from travelling. i've flown home with everything from my favourite bahn mi, jack-in-the-box tacos, media noches, white castles, tamales and dozens of madeleines from the maison kayser in the 5th paris - for which i was scolded by the boulangerie ladies because i bought them out. what gives? why only one? what kind of superhuman willpower do you have? Tue Mar 05 04:29:32 -0800 2002 61937 0 louisa